How would you describe what you do, and what are you trying to achieve?
What I essentially do is to make music ready for commercial release.
Mastering is in essence the final stage of the recording process – the last chance to address sonic issues before delivery to the public. Personally, I am trying to achieve loud, open, well balanced masters. On an album project I want a general good sonic consistency to every track so that the album has a sense of continuity. And of course, I want happy artists & happy record labels!
Why is mastering important?
Mastering is the last chance to address any mix issues, breathe some life into, or just squeeze that last few percent out of a track before delivery to the public. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, delivering your music in its strongest possible form is absolutely essential. From a dance music point of view you may have musically the strongest composition in the world but if it sounds weak on a system, no one is going to play it!
Also as so much dance music is made 'in the box' (i.e. entirely within a computer - bmb) it is the last chance your audio has to see some nice transformers, valves & circuitry before becoming digits again. I think most audio 'deserves' the chance to be analogue at some stage in its life prior to manufacture!
What are the most important techniques you use?
Listening! Assessing what needs to be done before diving straight in!
It is so easy to get lost in adding a little bit here, a little bit there, a shelf here, touch of bass there, all of a sudden you`ve just basically turned the track up but in a really awful clumsy way!
From a technical point of view, I guess the most important techniques are 'corrective EQ' & compression in series.
I don`t think that I can really talk too much about EQ, other than to say that I fix what needs to be fixed and push what feels right to push! I tend to use high and low cuts on all dance music - cutting anywhere between 20 to 30Hz and 18kHz to 25kHz. There just tends to be crap above and below these frequencies that takes up energy.
Each of my EQs has their 'sweet spots' so I tend to use different outboard for different frequencies. Also I tend to 'feather' the EQs a bit. That is to say, I'll use maybe two or three overlapping bands of EQ to add some of the missing frequencies rather than just have one band doing a lot – to my ears it just sounds a bit nicer that way. Unsurprisingly, I tend to do corrective surgery at the start with a digital EQ and all the nice sweetening EQ with my analogue EQs.
I use several compressors & limiters all doing a tiny bit of compression. You will hardly see much movement on the gain reduction meters moving in my studio. None of the kit is ever working that hard from a gain reduction point of view - it's the sum of the parts. Unless I'm going for a real compression 'effect' I don't want to hear them working. They all have different attack and release times and it's the way they interact with each other that gives the overall effect.
I guess the way I get nice clean level increases is by hitting all the outboard kit pretty hard, and letting the overall gain build up throughout the chain. It is a very personal process but one that sounds good to my ears; it keeps the music sounding 'open' which is very important.
What can producers do to help you get better results?
For me, several things:
1. Build a relationship with your Mastering Engineer. All of my artists and producers speak to me on a continual basis. They send me tracks long before their delivery deadlines and we talk about them. If things can be fixed in the mix and not at mastering that is far better. I would much rather spend my time and use my equipment to sweeten things rather than fix them!
2. Make sure that you are not mastering the day before your delivery is due (oops - binga). This can buy us some time to correct any issues if needs be prior to the mastering.
3. Critically listen to your peers. Most artists have a 'sound' that they are going for. Cross reference against finished tracks that you know sound awesome in a club. It is all to easy to sit in a studio making music, thinking it's the nuts and then get it out on a system and realise it's a million miles away from where it needs to be.
4. Play your track out as much as possible and get a feel for the overall vibe of it as well as the sonics. DJing it out on systems is invaluable. I know this is stating the obvious, but I'll do it anyway - play it on as many home systems, laptops, cars, DVD players as you can. Each different system will give you a different insight into the track. Record a DJ mix with it in and listen back to it in the context of other tracks. It's really important to know how it will work between other tracks – if you are thinking 'wow, this is the fattest track ever, it's got more bass on it than anything else I`ve ever heard' then chances are that you're in problem territory!
5. Be HONEST with yourself. Mastering can only do so much.
6. Don't smack the shit out of it with a limiter.
7. Attend the mastering session! If needs be, bring your laptop - a large percentage of my mastering is done directly of artists' laptops. That way, as I'm working on it, if needs be we can change one element in the mix. If the bass is great but the kick is weak, we can treat just the kick, rather than having to notch up the kick on a stereo track, which will ultimately affect the bass as well.
How did you get into mastering?
Someone I knew told me that a mastering facility was looking for a tea boy / tape duplication 'engineer' and I applied. They didn`t want anyone with skills, just someone who was prepared to work hard and learn! I got the job and spent about two years making tea, changing light bulbs, emptying bins and copying tapes. I got paid atrociously, but I spent all my spare time hanging out with real engineers, learning. When I got a chance to move up the ladder, I was ready. I think that is pretty much the standard way.
To be honest, I didn't know what mastering was! I wanted to be a multi track engineer with a big desk and loads of outboard, but there were no jobs going. I saw an opportunity and went for it. Initially I thought that I would piggy back into recording or mixing, but as I learnt, I really got into the process of mastering and thought that it suited my personality – really anal and a bit OCD! It's all about attention to detail, and I`m definitely good at that!
Has mastering been affected by the downturn in the music industry?
Not for us down here. As record labels have been selling less units per release, they have had to put out more releases to keep their profits up. Every release still needs to get mastered, so in fact we're busier than ever.
Also, because more and more music is being made in bedroom studios, I think the mastering stage is now more critical than ever, as it has to iron out the inconsistencies in 'bad' monitoring environments. This is much more so now than say ten years ago, when much more music was being made in studios. A&R are much more aware of this now and are themselves seeing mastering as being more critical than maybe it had been.
However, ask me the same question in a couple of years and it could be a VERY different answer. A lot of labels went bust a couple of years ago when the distribution companies like Interscope / Pinnacle et al went down. As a commercial studio if too many of your labels go, you're gone. So far we've been lucky that most of our clients haven't been affected too badly.
Any thoughts on the loudness issue? Do you get a lot of stuff that has been compressed / limited to death before it reaches you, and why is that a problem?
I both hate it and understand it. I think that we're ultimately tying ourselves in knots. There's the whole 'iPod shuffle syndrome' and then there's what sounds good. Ultimately, the client is right and if they want a track to sound as loud on their iPod as a Black Eyed Peas record then it's their call. It's fine on a crappy little system in a bar where there is never enough level, but on a big system the tracks sound better to me when they haven't been hammered. I have certain artists where I make them an unlimited version for playing out on big systems and a 'LOUDER' version for giving to the labels and for retail. They all claim that when they play the unlimited version out on a big system the whole club 'breathes'. Speaks volumes….
Yes I get a massive amount of tracks that have been peak limited. Am I able to get new versions – often not. Labels unfortunately leave mastering to the very last minute and then getting hold of an artist to get an un-maxed out version in time is virtually impossible. That said, it`s not always too bad and I wouldn`t say that you HAVE to supply an uncompressed / unlimited version - it really depends on the program material.
I know a lot of artists now that actually write into a compressor and limiter. It can give a very current / trendy clipped & aggressive sound and it can actually suit certain styles of music. If they pulled all the compression and limiting off before they sent the track to me then the mix would fall apart. I would probably then be far too 'respectful' to the audio and perhaps not give it the aggression that they're after – and then I'd end up with an unhappy artist.
Undoubtedly I can do much more with some headroom, but I`m not so precious as to reject material that has been hammered. No it's not ideal, but it`s the world we live in. We are talking about dance music here, not audiophile jazz! If it's part of the sound, I'll work with it. One thing I would say however is that if you are writing into the plugs then leave them on, but if you're flinging them on afterwards just to get some level then don`t bother.
For me, the main issue is - does it sound good? I get some stuff through my door that sounds AMAZING and it's clipped to shit – does it sound good? That's really all that's relevant. There's also an element of knowing what you can get away with. You're not going to get a big gospel house record as loud as a techy minimal one. The techy minimal one can come in to my studio battered and I can still do a surprising amount, but if the gospel house one comes in battered, there's very little I can do.
What are some interesting projects you have worked on?
They're all interesting in they're own way!!!!! I know that's a total cop out, but I really mean it. Obviously some are better than others musically, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of meeting the artists and bands. It doesn't always follow that the people that make the best music are the most fun to sit in a studio with!! My website has a list of some of my projects on, and only the good ones we REALLY liked doing make it onto the website.
What makes something interesting to me would be incredibly dull to someone else… sorry.
(continued in Pt. 2)
